It seems as if I am standing on one side of a huge canyon and see how I should grow toward you, live in your presence and serve you, but cannot reach the other side of the canyon where you are. I can speak and write...about the beauty and goodness of the life I see on the other side, but how, O Lord, can I get there?
- Henri Nouwen, A Cry for Mercy
My life is filled with very good things right now.
I have a steady job. Affordable rent. A great housemate. Beautiful mountains and coastline within reach. Family nearby. Plentiful food. Easy transportation. Good health. Educational opportunities. Fall colors right outside my window.
Why, then, am I unhappy? Why do I still feel like I’m lost in the dark?
It seems so foolish: God has spent the last several years showing me more deeply—more beautifully—that He is what matters. Not people’s expectations, not my own expectations, not the ways I think I should be serving Him, not how spectacular my life looks. And yet here I am again, so quickly plagued with doubt and insecurity, so afraid that my life means nothing right now. So afraid that I have missed what God wanted me to do, that I will always feel adrift and vaguely purposeless.
And when I see the world around me, around those close to me—the deaths of children, cancer, miscarriages, chronic illness, suicide attempts, friends estranged—I am horrified that I, with my lavish blessings, dare to be unhappy, that I dare to be less than bursting with gratefulness at all times. But it’s a horror that only makes the sadness soak in deeper, and gives fertile ground to hopelessness.
The worst part is knowing that I have “the answer”. Many people are healthy and wealthy, and still sense an emptiness. I mean, that’s what we tell them when we evangelize, right? “Still trying to fill that void with [money, sex, success, beauty, drugs, other]? That’s the God-shaped vacuum in you, that He’s just waiting to fill. Nothing else can fill it.”
So, what, then, when you have health and wealth and Jesus, and still have a void? What, when you re-read the things you’ve written—those beautiful lessons, those assurances of grace and significance in Christ, those times when God has been here—and doubt they can ever have been your words?
I know—know for certain—that God has not abandoned me. I believe His promises never to forsake me. I know that He is my hope, and my hiding place; my glory and the lifter of my head. He is faithful, and glorious, and worthy of all praise. I can see it with my eyes, and even recount it with my lips. But somehow I can’t get that knowledge to matter, in my gut. I know that we are not promised warm fuzzy “God is present” feelings all the time. I know that feelings are not everything. But somehow “knowing” that that He’s close, that He loves me, that I’m safe in Him—when I feel so exposed and sin-soaked and alone—makes the separation seem that much more profound.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Thanks, indeed.
I can only keep trying to be faithful, even though I feel faithless most of the time. What else can I do but keep praying to you, even when I feel dark; to keep writing about you, even when I feel numb, to keep speaking in your name, even when I feel alone.
…
I read about "knowing you," about the ways one comes to a knowledge of you, and I pray that what I understand with my mind will descend one day into my heart and give me inner light.
I call to you, O Lord, from my quiet darkness. Show me your mercy and love. Let me see your face, hear your voice, touch the hem of your cloak. I want to love you, be with you, speak to you and simply stand in your presence. But I cannot make it happen. Pressing my eyes against my hands is not praying, and reading about your presence is not living in it.
But there is that moment in which you will come to me, as you did to your fearful disciples, and say "Do not be afraid, it is I". Let that moment come soon, O Lord. And if you want to delay it, then make me patient. Amen. - Nouwen
Amen.
